The age of the keyboard is over

While BlackBerry has been making some phones without keyboards ever since 2008, it has long held true that the majority of BlackBerrys sold have had a physical keyboard. However now that BlackBerry has moved on to their new QNX based operating system that is no longer a given. Even now that the Q10 is widely available, the vast majority of BlackBerry 10 users do not have a physical keyboard on their device.

When looking at app downloads the BlackBerry Z10 has outperformed the Q10 for month after month, and June was no different. This has been true both across games, as well as in more standard utility apps. For example look at app downloads in the Productivity-Organization category where I happen to have access to stats from some of the top ranked apps. If anything you would think that a category with a ‘get things done’ approach like this one would show an oversampling of keyboard users. In fact they are by far in the minority.

The top ranked third-party app in the category is the Stuff I Need checklist app that saw 83.5% of downloads in June to users without a physical keyboard (see the pie chart above). The next most popular app is Corky Notes which saw 75% of its downloads on the Z10 over the same month (see the pie chart below). Downloads of both apps skewing heavily away from the physical keyboard phones.

While BlackBerry 10 does continue to offer more devices with a full keyboard than iOS or Android, having one has become the exception, not the rule. On BlackBerry 10 it is time to stop thinking first about keyboards, and remember that most users on the platform are touchscreen only.

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BlackBerry developer of games and other applications. Creator of games like Pixelated and Xploding Boxes, as well as other apps such as Twinkle.
Apps available at http://appworld.blackberry.com/webstore/vendor/1111

At the end of the day its all compatibility issues. Most of the apps that work on the Z10 don’t really work on the Q10. Some weren’t callibrated to do so, and blackberry world is already ‘short’ in apps (honestly every necessity is present but there’s no such thing as too many).

I am not so sure I would jump to the same conclusion. People that are attracted to Keyboard phones likely don’t give a hoot about apps. I have a client that has a Q10 that I set up for him. He would not even consider the Z10 yet he was keen to switch to BB10. He waited for the Q10 and two months later, he loves it, but the only third-party app on it was Harmon.ie for accessing SharePoint which I put on for him. I think he is a very typical user too. Apps are fads, I have a Z10 and the novelty of pretty much every app has worn off. I use my phone a lot, but there are only a few apps outside the core that I care about. I have an iPad too and Chrome is my favourite app.

There are plenty of people who don’t know how to properly use their phones, but assuming that there are a higher percentage of people like this that use the Q10 than any other phone seems very unlikely. In fact the early adopters who rush out to buy phones within the first few months of launch are more likely to be big app users, so I would in fact argue that (in the short term at least) the opposite is far more likely to be true…

I ordered my Q10 as soon as I got back from a business trip after its release (maybe a few days after) on AT&T and I’ve had it for 9 days – one of those days was in June. Hardly a fair comparison in this article. Personally the Q10 is my favorite phone and I’m coming from a Nexus 4 and a GS3 before that. If I want to play games or watch videos I’ll use my tablet, but for work the Q10 can’t be beat IMHO.

Yeah, really the Q10 is too new to judge, there’s really little we can say about it. And yeah most people who use blackberries aren’t really in it for the apps. That’s true of myself too. I guess only time will tell.

I am not sure how these download numbers where gathered, but I assume they were simply taken from the vendor portal.

The vendor portal downloads count re-downloads like a reinstall and especially updates. So if you have issued at least one update in June a huge part of your existing Z10 user base was counted multiple times.

Henrik – Bellshare

This will skew the numbers heavily toward the device that has been longest in the market.

I would argue that including downloads from updates makes the stats better by not excluding users who are still a very active part of the market despite existing for over one month.

Still, a month from now I will publish the split of devices for July, showing the breakdown of users for the Stuff I Need app. For Corky Notes check http://www.qbotron.com/blog/ to see if Gyubok posts anything. I don’t expect the numbers to change too much…

Actually, you neglected to consider the fact that the Q10 was released much later and has quite the learning curve. Also, the power of the OS10 keyboard has yet to be unleashed with the activation of shortcuts. Your stats are of interest but your conclusion is entirely premature.

Completely agree this sort of analysis is FAR too premature. If both Q10 and Z10 had launched together this would be a fair analysis. To be honest this looks more like the kind of “analysis” we see at BGR than here at BerryReview…

There are just too many variables to consider. I’ll try to list them all.

1. Z10 have been sold for more than double that than Q10
2. Z10 have been sold in more countries than Q10
3. Z10 hype was exponentially larger than Q10 since it was the first BlackBerry 10 device
4. Q10 have significantly less apps than Z10, so the fewer apps available for Q10 have more focused download than Z10
5. Q10 users can be assumed to be more productivity driven so these apps will be more appealing to Q10 users.
6. Most apps are optimized for Z10 screen so Z10 users are more likely to keep the above mentioned apps and receive updates, which will double, triple, or even quadruple the download count per user.

Given those factors above, no, I don’t think “The age of the keyboard is over”. We just don’t know for sure yet. I’ll public numbers for the same app for the month of July so we can see if the Z10 ratio decrease or stay the same (or even increase). Decreasing Z10 ratio will indicate that age of keyboard is not yet over.

I will bet that those with Q10s buy it to be primarily a business or personal productivity tool. That means very few and targeted apps. Email/messaging, calendar, and document reading is primarily the purpose.

Those that buy a phablet, or Z10 like devices are more likely treating it like a toy for all sorts of things. It replaces the tablet, and it replaces the laptop. These people, browse the web, read books, watch movies on their phone.

My Q10 is my link to the world for connectivity and messaging. That’s it. I have an eReader for reading (far superior to a phone), a tablet for portable browsing, a GPS for my car, and I have a real computer with a real keyboard for any serious productivity or gaming. The reality is though, that most people want an all-in-one device (and are willing to concede a lot to get one) and they need a lot of apps.